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The Invincible Thread!

It seems like once or twice a year we get a new Invincible thread that is updated only a handful of times before falling off the face of the planet forever and so, since the book is one of my favorite on-goings, I'm going to personally make sure this one gets updated as frequently as possible until every single one of you are reading the title.

Two new covers were revealed today for upcoming collections of the series:

Invincible TPB Volume 11

Spoiler:

Invincible HC Volume 5

Spoiler:

Also, Nate Bellegarde recently revealed that he's currently working on a Rex Splode mini-series! Here's a teaser image:

A few months ago I had some splurge cash and bought the over-priced Absolute Invincible collection. I loved it so I'm collecting the trades but weirdly some people at my comic shop are warning me to avoid the whole Invincible War thing.

The Invincible War wasn't bad by any means, it was just over too quickly. Whereas most event titles like Infinite Crisis or Secret Invasion tend to drag things out too much by an issue or two, the Invincible War was over in a single, double-sized issue. The story could have easily gone on longer but Kirkman wanted to see if he could fit everything in to issue sixty (which he quickly admitted didn't work the way he would have liked for it to).

I can't seem to recall many comic events that i like as much as invincible war..
It's everything Ultimatum is not!

Sure, it's hard to compare to some of the better bits of say, civil war, but in the end something actually happened/Something actually is happening.
i guess i prefer a condensed event with a great satisfactory outcome over a long-winded cock-teasing event that only leads into the next one.

(still kinda pissed that i read 90% of ALL civil war books and most if it isn't even relevant at al anymore).

I liked Invincible War, for the most part. But I'm going to be super bummed if, like he's been teasing, Kirkman actually

Spoiler:

kills Eve. Especially since we never saw the fight.

I feel like that has to be a fake-out. Kirkman's a savvy dude, and I refuse to believe that he'd intentionally broadcast a major plot point in such a blatant way.

I mean, he had Ottley deliberately obfuscate a character's sleeve on the cover of an issue, just to avoid spoiling their appearance. Unless he's desperate to drum up some interest in the book, which I doubt as it's still selling well, it has to be a swerve.

I liked Invincible War, for the most part. But I'm going to be super bummed if, like he's been teasing, Kirkman actually

Spoiler:

kills Eve. Especially since we never saw the fight.

I feel like that has to be a fake-out. Kirkman's a savvy dude, and I refuse to believe that he'd intentionally broadcast a major plot point in such a blatant way.

I mean, he had Ottley deliberately obfuscate a character's sleeve on the cover of an issue, just to avoid spoiling their appearance. Unless he's desperate to drum up some interest in the book, which I doubt as it's still selling well, it has to be a swerve.

Yeah, it probably is a fake-out, and I know that in my head. But that won't stop me from crying on the inside when I think about it. D:

I just picked up the latest trade. Here's what I don't get: is there anything redeeming whatsoever about Oliver? He just seems like a sociopathic version of his father. I don't want to suggest the character is unreasonable, since his views flow entirely naturally from his history. I just want to understand what other people find enjoyable about him since it's not working for me.

I just picked up the latest trade. Here's what I don't get: is there anything redeeming whatsoever about Oliver? He just seems like a sociopathic version of his father. I don't want to suggest the character is unreasonable, since his views flow entirely naturally from his history. I just want to understand what other people find enjoyable about him since it's not working for me.

Spoiler:

The thing you have to remember about Oliver is that he's really only a year or so old. He doesn't get to leave the house because of his skin color and as a result has had no real interactions with others apart from his mother and Mark. He's one of those characters that I think will be fun to go back and read how much they've grown eventually.

I mean, that's what I'm struggling with about him. His explanation (in the trade; I don't follow the individual issues) makes sense in that all of his biological imperatives come either from his purely communitarian mother's lineage or his apparently communitarian/fascist father's, so it makes sense that he doesn't share the same selfish biological urges than humans have. So, I'm not at all upset with that.

But I mean, I could think up a lot of horrible, unpleasant characters that would make sense but that I wouldn't want to read about. Right now, I can't make myself want to care about Oliver. All I want is for him to die with as small a body count as possible. He already killed the Mauler clones (hopefully there was a backup), and I'm sure he's killed people in the issues not yet put in a trade.

If there's someone who likes him - not just 'gets' him, but actually likes the character, and finds him fun, etc. - can they explain why? I really like Kirkman, and I'm struggling to enjoy this character, but between him and the stuff with Cecil I'm sorta frustrated.

I think it'll be more interesting as he gets older. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Oliver around the same age as Mark by the time issue 100 hits. And I think he'll have a change of attitude once someone close to him (perhaps Nolan or Debbie) bites it.

That's the frustrating part to me, actually, Robos: I like the idea of a kid that kills. I think there's a tremendous amount of potential there. But Oliver isn't portrayed as sympathetic, just sociopathic. He is full-on fascist (thinking he gets to decide who lives and who dies, etc.) as opposed to the communitarian he describes himself as. Granted, that sort of dissonance could totally lead to good stories in concept, but this particular depiction of a contradiction like that just results in a villain living with Mark. He lies without question or reservation after killing the Maulers, which means he is clearly aware of the fact that he cannot admit his true reasoning to anyone. This reads to me as a sociopath, not a misguided youth or whatnot.

Don't get me wrong; I love Invincible and I'm not dropping it as a series. I just wish they'd get Oliver to at least a mildly tolerable level.

That's the frustrating part to me, actually, Robos: I like the idea of a kid that kills. I think there's a tremendous amount of potential there. But Oliver isn't portrayed as sympathetic, just sociopathic. He is full-on fascist (thinking he gets to decide who lives and who dies, etc.) as opposed to the communitarian he describes himself as. Granted, that sort of dissonance could totally lead to good stories in concept, but this particular depiction of a contradiction like that just results in a villain living with Mark. He lies without question or reservation after killing the Maulers, which means he is clearly aware of the fact that he cannot admit his true reasoning to anyone. This reads to me as a sociopath, not a misguided youth or whatnot.

Don't get me wrong; I love Invincible and I'm not dropping it as a series. I just wish they'd get Oliver to at least a mildly tolerable level.

A character doesn't have to be sympathetic to interesting though. In fact a character doesn't even have to be sympathetic to be good.
I like Oliver because he's interesting both as a character and a plot device.

That's the frustrating part to me, actually, Robos: I like the idea of a kid that kills. I think there's a tremendous amount of potential there. But Oliver isn't portrayed as sympathetic, just sociopathic. He is full-on fascist (thinking he gets to decide who lives and who dies, etc.) as opposed to the communitarian he describes himself as. Granted, that sort of dissonance could totally lead to good stories in concept, but this particular depiction of a contradiction like that just results in a villain living with Mark. He lies without question or reservation after killing the Maulers, which means he is clearly aware of the fact that he cannot admit his true reasoning to anyone. This reads to me as a sociopath, not a misguided youth or whatnot.

Don't get me wrong; I love Invincible and I'm not dropping it as a series. I just wish they'd get Oliver to at least a mildly tolerable level.

A character doesn't have to be sympathetic to interesting though. In fact a character doesn't even have to be sympathetic to be good.
I like Oliver because he's interesting both as a character and a plot device.

I think I was unclear here: I didn't mean to say that Oliver had to be sympathetic, but rather was picking an arbitrary 'good' characteristic to counter the 'sociopathic' characteristic. I could just as well have said that he's not funny, just sociopathic (compare: Deadpool, who is both).

He's certainly interesting as a plot device. I just...I dunno, I feel like I'm waiting too long for Mark to realize what he really is. This is the amazing thing about Kirkman, his willingness to draw stories out for such a long period of time in Invincible (Willingham does a similar thing in Fables), and so I guess it's here to stay, and usually a good thing. Maybe it's that Oliver seems so obvious to me as a reader that I don't get Mark's reactions.